Sharing a picture

I wanted to combine a couple of pictures of the boys since they don't cooperate together for the same shot. I discovered Picnik, an easy, FREE online editing tool. I'm sure I won't win any awards for my photo editing skills, and I have no desire to learn Photoshop or anything like that. But I love how this picture turned out and wanted to share it.


They make me smile.

Of Shrek and Santa and Christmas Pageants

Justin is so excited about Christmas this year. He can't wait for Santa to come. It snowed over the weekend, and he said, "Santa's coming today!" I asked him why he thought so, and he said, "It's snowing, and snow means Christmas! Santa comes on Christmas!" I felt like such a Scrooge for telling him it wasn't quite going to work that way.

On Saturday night, when I put him to bed, I told him to be a really good boy, and that we would take him and Tyler to see Santa the next day. Sure enough, he got up on Sunday, and he was truly on his best behavior. Really, really, good, and that doesn't happen a lot right now. :) So we headed over to the mall in the nasty cold weather. When we arrived, Santa was on break. Bummer. But even that didn't faze Justin, he went into the EB Games store with Daddy where they passed the time while Tyler and I stood in line for Santa. Finally the time arrived when it was their turn to sit on Santa's lap. We got a decent picture out of them and then we started loading them back up in the stroller.



Then, Justin turned to me with this crestfallen look on his face, and said, "Mommy, Santa didn't give me any presents. He forgot. I didn't get anything." Oh my goodness, I wanted to scoop him up right there! The poor child had thought all morning long that he was going to see Santa, and that was when he was going to get his gifts! Tom and I explained that no, Santa didn't forget......he comes to our house on Christmas Eve and brings the toys. This was just a chance to tell Santa what he really wants. Justin understood, but he was so disappointed.

So far, I think Justin's favorite Christmas special is "Shrek the Halls." Yes, even ogres have Christmas, and we have been lucky enough to share Shrek's with him. Many times. Justin puts on his Christmas-themed pajamas, his Santa hat, and settles right down with Shrek, Rudolph, Frosty, whoever he's thinking about at the time. It's really a lot of fun to relive my childhood a little bit when we looked so forward to watching the Christmas specials on TV. DVRs are such wonderful inventions.....now these lucky kids (and their parents) can watch Christmas on demand, without being slaves to the TV schedule.



And finally, Justin performed in the Christmas program for his school this past week. Last year, he sat through the whole thing and didn't sing a line. He just sat there looking a little awestruck. This year, he was ready to perform. His class sang 6 songs, loudly and with lots of emotion. It was nothing short of adorable. About halfway through the 3rd or 4th song, Justin left his spot on the risers and walked straight up to the microphone, and started singing into it. It was one of the funniest things I have seen him do, and the entire audience guffawed. It's not a moment that his father or I will forget soon!






Christmas is going to be fantastic this year. It already is.

Mama said there would be days like this

....only she didn't. My mother is an amazing woman who never complains. I don't know how she did it with three demanding children, I really don't. I look up to her more than ever now that I'm a mom myself.

I was feeling under the weather most all of last week and then had a stomach bug over the weekend. Thing of it is, moms don't get sick days, especially when they don't work outside the home and stay with their kids all day. All I wanted to do was lie on the couch and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to be lazy and watch TV and fall asleep. Whenever I get sick, I just want my mom to take care of me. If my mother was ever ill when I was a kid, I never knew it. She certainly never let the house go to hell, or took a nap. I don't remember her doing anything besides being a great mom.

We celebrated my mom's birthday over the weekend. There aren't enough ways to let her know how much we love and appreciate her. I love you, mom. Thanks for being such a great role model for me.

Halloween Goblins

Justin looked forward to Halloween with great anticipation this year. He picked out a Buzz Lightyear costume early in September and was dying to wear it for several weeks. It hung in his closet and he fingered it often, longing for Halloween to arrive.




Tyler, on the other hand, had no idea that Halloween was coming or what costume he would don for the occasion. I, however, knew what costume he would wear this Halloween as soon as he was born. My mom had made an Indian costume for my oldest nephew, Ryan, to wear when he was 14 months old. All of the boys in the family (with the exception of one) have worn it since, easy decision for me to make.




Tom had readied the camera earlier so we could properly record our little goblins on film. Justin was not at all interested in posing, only in hitting the street for goodies. We headed out with Tyler in the stroller and Justin racing far ahead of us down the street. When he ran into our neighbors, he suddenly became shy and tongue-tied, and nary a "trick or treat" could be elicited from him. That mattered none, and he soon had a few treats in his bucket. I wasn't terribly concerned with getting much in Tyler's treat bucket -- his food allergies mean that chocolate and anything with peanuts or eggs in it are off-limits.

Justin was really shy the entire time we were out and couldn't be bothered to say either "trick or treat", or a "thank you" to anyone. He even spit at one nice man, and I was horrified. Fortunately, most people seem to understand that three year olds are stubborn creatures closely related to neanderthals, and just dismissed it with a smile. Tyler was all smiles and thoroughly enjoyed his ride through the neighborhood in the stroller. He took no notice of the candy at all, but I'm sure he'll be much more aware of the proceedings next year.

For all of Justin's fervor to get out of the house, he was ready to quit about 30 minutes into the adventure. We obliged him as it was getting dark, and headed on home. All in all, it was a good evening. I do think our two were some of the cutest kids out last night. :)

Some press for Justin

After reading through my previous posts, I feel like I've done a lot of talking about the little guy and not enough about his big brother. So today, I'm going to talk about Justin.

It's hard to believe that Justin is on his way to being four years old. So much was different in our lives back then, and I don't just mean we didn't have kids yet. Tom and I were both employed at different jobs, we had two cats, and we didn't have a minivan. :)

I found out I was pregnant with Justin about 3 weeks before Christmas. I had just finished my last day at my job, and was starting a new one the following week. We'd been trying to get pregnant for several months, but each month it was the same story....no baby on the way. I honestly didn't expect this particular month to be any different. I got home from work about 2:00 that day and just decided to take a test, fully expecting it to be negative. A plus sign appeared almost immediately. I rubbed my eyes several times, sure they were playing tricks on me, but nope, there it was. And I was pretty freaked out!

I went out for a few hours with some friends. We had a full evening planned of watching each other's wedding videos, exchanging Christmas ornaments, and eating lots of yummy snacks. I wasn't sure if I should drink diet coke or not, it has caffeine in it you know. And the whole time, I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell Tom. I wanted to announce it in a cute way, but I'm just not that creative.

So I finally got home and I was getting ready for bed while he was fooling around on the computer. I told him that I thought I needed to start cleaning up my office. He asked me why, and I said, "Because I'm pregnant!" He wasn't sure whether to believe me so I took two more tests the next morning, including a digital one that definitely displayed the word, "Pregnant". Whee, we were on our way to parenthood.



We announced the news to our families on Christmas Day. Both sets of grandparents received a picture frame with the following poem in it:

I do not have a face to see,
or put inside a frame.

I do not have soft cheeks to kiss;
I don't yet have a name.

You can't hold my tiny hands,
nor whisper in my ear.

It's still too soon to sing a song,
or cuddle me so near.

But all will change come August,
when they say I'm due.

I'm your new grandson or granddaughter;
I can't wait till I meet you!

All I ask between now and then
is your patience while I grow.

I promise I'll be worth the wait,
because of all the love we'll know.

So as you're waiting patiently,
please pray lots of prayers for me.

I cannot wait to be a part
of this wonderful family!


An ultrasound a few weeks later confirmed the fact that there was indeed a baby on the way. Tom and I had no idea how our lives would change, but it definitely became more real on that January day!




I'll talk more about him in my next post. :)

Two in tubes

Tyler had his 12 month well visit a few weeks ago. Poor guy was suffering from an ear infection at the time, and this being his 7th ear infection since the beginning of the year (and third in 2 months), his doctor referred us to an ENT doctor for an evaluation.

We were able to get in the very next week and Dr. Cotton looked in both ears and reviewed his history. "Let's get some tubes in there and get him fixed up, okay?" he said in his British accent. "Handsome boy you've got there."

This resulted in a trip to Children's Hospital last Tuesday for the tube insertion. Despite the fact that Justin has had tubes put in three times, it never gets easier to watch your child go under anesthesia, or hand them over to the capable medical professionals. Tyler did beautifully, though, and the procedure only took 10 minutes.

One thing I don't understand about anesthesia is why it causes these little guys to wake up so crabby and beast-like. Tyler was mad when he woke up and let everyone know it!

Thankfully, the surgery is over and he bounced back to his normal happy self within a couple of hours. Let's hope this takes care of his nagging problems with his ears for a couple of years like his older brother before him.

A lot of firsts around here lately

I guess that's to be expected when your child is in his first year of life, or shortly after. Now that we've gotten through the first birthday, Tyler just got his first haircut. I've been having a hard time coming to terms with it for some reason, probably because the look a little boy has after his very first haircut is much more that of a KID and a BOY than a little baby. I guess I just wanted to hold on to his babyhood a little bit longer by leaving the precious strands intact on his head.

But today I went to Target and two people mistook him for a girl. The first time someone mistook him for a little girl was also at Target 2 weeks ago, so maybe I need to start shopping elsewhere? I digress. Despite the fact that he was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that said, "Gridiron Hero" with a picture of a football, his curls (and I suppose the length of them) belied his gender.

I came home and fed him some lunch and called to see if my hair stylist could cut it today, before I lost my nerve. So as soon as I combed the turkey out of his hair and wiped the fruit loop dust from his fingers, off we went. He really needed a nap but I wanted to get it over with.

He did pretty well. He sat in the chair all by himself and was pretty excited about seeing himself in the mirror. He wasn't a big fan of having water on his hair. Even a lollipop in his hand wouldn't distract him......what kid doesn't like a lollipop?

It was over with in no time. He looks positively adorable, but he definitely radiates "little boy" now instead of "baby".

First Birthday Party

This weekend, we had a party to celebrate Tyler's first birthday. It was a smashing success. He absolutely LOVED being sung to -- his eyes lit up when the guests broke into the "Happy Birthday" chorus. He was skeptical about his cake and ice cream, but finally dived in and gave it the thumbs up, pronouncing it very tasty. He received many generous gifts and all in all, the little guy had a perfect day.







I just can't believe he's one.

Tyler is one year old!

When I was a kid, I could never understand how my parents could say silly things like, "time flies" or "Christmas will be here soon". Time most certainly did not crawl when I was sitting in school wishing I was doing something else, and Christmas and birthdays never arrived quickly enough.

I can barely remember what life was like before our children were born. We could go out whenever we wanted to, we could stay up all night, we could go on trips.....the list is endless. But we've been blessed with these two beautiful boys and each day passes with ever-greater velocity.

Sweet Tyler celebrated his very first birthday yesterday. Since his arrival was a scheduled c-section, I spent all day on Monday thinking where I was a year ago and how I was rushing around to make sure our bags were packed for the hospital, getting Justin settled with grandma and grandpa, etc., and not knowing yet whether the baby in utero was a boy or a girl.

A year later, I can't imagine anything else besides the handsome, happy, perfect boy that we have. He is an amazing gift to us.








Tyler hasn't been feeling well the past few days and woke up on the morning of his birthday with a temperature of 101.4. That's pretty unfair to a guy who's only 365 days old, but he powered through. It was obvious that he wasn't feeling like himself, so we stayed in for dinner. I went to Kroger's and bought a 6-pack of decorated cupcakes to celebrate. We put a candle in the shape of a "1" on top and sang Happy Birthday to him, which he loved. After that, we had a couple of presents for him and he appeared to really enjoy the experience.





But the time came to end the evening when he finally began to disintegrate.



It's safe to say, I think he's going to enjoy being 1.

Going for a ride

Monday was a beautiful day, so I decided to take the boys for a walk in the wagon. There is a little play area next to the pool in our neighborhood and it's the perfect distance for a walk. We packed a little bag with some snacks and some drinks and headed out. They were so cute sitting there in the wagon together!



Tyler did extremely well sitting on the seat in the wagon. I was worried that he would slide off, but he sat there very confidently and did just fine. We got to the park, and headed for the playset with the slides. Justin likes the curly slide. Tyler and I climbed up and sat in the lookout area and watched him. Tyler also tasted a few pebbles of gravel and explored a little bit.





Then it was time to get on the swings. Both of the boys love swinging -- it must be so relaxing to them.





Eventually, Justin tired of swinging and wanted to head home for some lunch. Tyler threw a mini fit when I took him out of the swing -- I think he thought it would be the perfect place to take a nap. After I got them both back in the wagon, Tyler wanted nothing to do with his sippy cup, but he sure thought Justin's looked good.



Check him out, eyeing that cup and then going in for the grab while Justin mugs for the camera! What a great day.